After Mockingjay
by jade1118
Summary: So after, when he whispers "So you love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real."  An expansion of that one page in Mockingjay
1. Chapter 1

I sit at the ruins of what used to be the fence, staring out at the Meadow. Behind me, I can't see much of the home I knew in my memories. But out there, it's exactly the same as it was before. Nature knows what to do, even when humans don't. It knows the way things should be.

"I knew I would you find you here." I don't bother turning around. I already know who it is. The voice is calm, like a sunset.

Peeta sits down next to me, but it's not the same as before. We're not star-crossed lovers or fearless tributes. We're just two people trying to find our way back to what we knew.

I look at him as he watches the sun set in the Meadow, and try to superimpose his face onto the one I dreamt about. It doesn't work. He doesn't need the handcuffs now, but he's not the same. This Peeta is battered and bruised, perhaps beyond repair. His gaze is harder, made of steel. He isn't blinded by love anymore. He can see me clearly now, in all my ugliness.

Still, I lean my head on his shoulder because it's automatic, like blinking or breathing. He stiffens, probably fighting off shiny images, but the tension passes and he puts an arm around me like he used to. I have never missed him as much as I do now.

"I remember when I first met you," he whispers. I glance up at his same-but-different eyes. "You had on a red dress, and when you stood in front of the class to sing the valley song, all the birds fell silent for you. Real or not real?" he asks.

"Real," I say. "Or at least you used to think so." I don't think he's ever seen me cry, or fall apart. But I'm not the same person I was either.

He wipes a tear off with his finger, brushing my cheeks dry. His hands move slowly, on straddling the line between caressing me and hurting me. "They tried to make me forget," he whispers. "But I couldn't. Not completely." Behind the strain in his eyes, I see the boy with the bread again. The boy in the cave. The boy on the beach.

I can see what it's like to not know who you are or who you loved. I can see how disorienting it is for him. But slowly, in bits and pieces, Peeta is coming back to me.

"I'll help you remember," I whisper. And we sit until the dusk draws a hazy curtain over the sky.

This time, we're broken, fragmented. But now there are no pretenses in the way. We know each other for who we really are. Maybe, this time, without the cameras and the delusions and the unconditional love, we can build something real.


	2. Chapter 2

I hunt. He bakes. When we have nothing to do, we talk.

I tell him the story of everything I remember. He laughs at Haymitch's drunken behavior at the Reaping. He remembers the story about Prim's goat. After all this time, he is still angry I risked my life for his antidote. Some things trigger his episodes again. Being stabbed by Cato. The berries. The Capitol party where I told him I kissed Gale. The entire Quarter Quell.

I stay with him, hold him, until the fever in his eyes die down. I trust him completely and he knows it. I think to myself, I can live my life like this. If I could have even pieces of the Peeta I knew, I could be happy.


	3. Chapter 3

He laughs at the string of squirrels I give him, and he starts boiling water for a stew. I think back to all the times I've seen him and I don't remember seeing the soft glow of his hair in the sunlight or the simultaneous strength and softness of his hands as he kneads dough.

I stare at him, and realize that I've never bothered to pay attention to these things before.

"What are you looking at?" Peeta's gaze finds mine, his eyes puzzled. He's curious. And he's still holding the squirrel.

"Just admiring my handiwork," I say, keeping things light. He smiles.

"Clean through the eye. As always." He turns back around.

A glow illuminates me from within. He remembers. He actually remembers.


	4. Chapter 4

I wake up and my sheets are drenched with sweat. I can still see the shadows of my dream, and I'm still screaming. I'm tangled under my blankets, but I can't get out.

Something comes through my window and reaches out to grab me. I rake my nail sat it, trying to make all the faces go away.

"You going to finish me off, sweetheart?" the voice drawls, and that one sentence pulls me from my nightmare back to life. I know that from somewhere, and it anchors me back to reality. I am in my bed, surrounded by sheets, surrounded by Peeta.

Peeta. I pull my hands away from his face, but I already drew blood from his cheeks. I can feel the wildness sinking away from me now, and I listen to the bead of his heart, as he rocks me like a child.

Because that's what I am. I've gone soft now, helpless as an infant. If Katniss from a year ago could see me now, she would laugh.

But Peeta doesn't seem to mind. He looks at me in a way that's different than before. He's not blind anymore. He can see through me, but he doesn't look unhappy about it.

The moonlight pours in through my open window and makes his face all light and shadows, nothing in between. His face is sharper now, nose a little crooked from a hard beating. And suddenly I know. This is the Peeta I want. The one who can see all my ugly and my fear, but will be here anyways.

"Stay with me," I whisper, just to make sure of it.

He looks straight into my eyes so that I know it is he talking and not the tracker jacker venom.

"Always."


	5. Chapter 5

When I wake up in the morning, I'm cradled in his arms and his hair is a disaster. But so is mine.

I glance up at him. He has such faint eyelashes that I sometimes forget they are there. I close my eyes again and let myself take in his presence, his closeness. It feels like the cave again, but even stronger, like his comfort is a drug.

I almost fall back asleep, but I feel softness on my lips. Involuntarily, like a heart beating, my arms wrap around his neck and pull him closer. There's a wild pounding in my ears.

After so long, I realize how much I need this, and from the force that he clutches me with, I see how much he needs this too. Like grooves fitting back in place, we remember together. But his kiss is different now, just like he is: harder, unyielding, forceful. We twine together, like gears welded into one.

I feel it again, that hunger I felt at the beach. It is a physical yearning, a need like air or food. When we finally let each other go, he stares at me for a long time, like he's about to say something. Maybe his hijacked memories are fighting for control over him again. But he just stays silent and still.

"What?" I say, my ineptness with words threatening the delicate balance we have. But he just looks at me, not with feral look of tracker jacker venom, but almost the way he used to.

So after a while, he whispers, "So you love me. Real or not real?" There's conflict in his eyes, but he's holding it back.

Love. I think about the Hunger Games. Not real. The Quarter Quell and the dozens of romantic moments we had. Not real. But then I think about the months after he was captured. The fear that he would never come back. The moments here, of me holding him tight when the shiny images threaten him. Him holding me when the faces of the dead threaten me. And me sitting here, seeing him, all of him, the beautiful and the broken.

"Real," I say, and he closes his fingers over mine.

"And what about you?" I say. This Peeta is different now, and I have to know.

"I've already told you a million different times," he smiles, and it reminds me of the way he used to. "Don't think I don't remember."


	6. Chapter 6

Like the seasons turning from winter into spring, we find each other again. It's not as easy as before. Sometimes his rage makes him break things. Sometimes I keep us awake all night with nightmares and screams of terror. But we see past that and know we need each other to survive.

He paints pictures of the horrors of war, so we'll never forget. But he also paints flowers from the Meadow, Finnick and Annie's baby, Cinna and Portia and Effie and Haymitch assembled together as a team. And me. The real me. Broken and hurt and weaker than before. But also smiling, learning things over again.

It was inevitable. I needed him all along, the one who sees past our memories to dream about what life could be. When the Meadow is whole again, he hands me the first dandelion of spring, and I know he is what I need to survive.

Maybe that's the best we can hope for – to survive. That's more than enough.


End file.
